Forever Dreaming
by elijahsmanhood
Summary: Elena never hit her head, and she never had vampire blood in her system when she drowned. Exploring Damon's reaction to Elena's death in the hospital during 3x22. "She looked so cold, so broken. However, this time it was a break that he couldn't fix"


**Disclaimer: I don't own The Vampire Diaries, it is a product of Julie Plec, Kevin Williamson and L.J. Smith. This work is for entertainment purposes only.**

**A/N: Hey guys. This short oneshot came from thinking about the consequences of the car crash, and how, inadvertently, Elena's brain haemorrhage saved her life. This is an exploration into the idea that Elena never had vampire blood in her system, and Damon's reaction to her death. This was originally posted onto my Tumblr (the-delenian-diaries) if you want to check it out there. Otherwise, enjoy :)**

"Where is she? Where is she?"

He was frantic, he knew, but at that moment he didn't care. He needed to see Elena; without confirmation, without setting his eyes on her, he could not believe her death. He _would_ not.

"No. Damon, wait!" Meredith called after him, as he pushed a man out of the way. She grabbed his shoulder; her grip was tight for a human, he thought.

"Stop, Damon. You don't want to go in there. You don't need to see her like that." She was desperate to spare him from the agony of losing yet another loved one. She had lost Ric, and she wouldn't wish that kind of hurt onto anyone. Damon…he had lost so much.

He didn't listen to her. Her words only spurred his need to see Elena; to know. The look of hopelessness in Meredith's eyes was so strong that it made him weary and he had to look away. It was a look that spoke truths he would not yet acknowledge. He would not believe that his girl was gone for good.

_Not yours,_ a voice inside his head reminded him. He didn't care, and he didn't listen to it. In this moment, she was his everything.

As he started walking down the corridor again, he heard Meredith's voice just one more time. It was nothing but a whisper.

"She's in the morgue, Damon."

He did not thank her. He did not falter in his steps.

Pitch black words hung ominously above the entrance; a starkly emphatic reminder to those in doubt of the miserable atmosphere looming in the corridor. Damon could hear the sound of his boots echoing on the floor as he walked, and his eyes honed in on nothing but the destination at hand. Every person in the hallway disappeared. Every sound was overlayed by silence. All he was concerned about was removing the thin barrier that now stood between Elena and him.

The doors to the morgue were ones that swung on their hinges, and when Damon's hand first made contact with one, it felt like an impossible weight. Still, it opened, and he was met with a sight he wished to eradicate from his mind as quickly as it had entered.

Elena lay on a metal table, her lips blue and her skin as pale as ice. She looked so cold, so broken. However, this time it was a break that he couldn't fix, however much he wanted to, however hard he tried.

He had never thought he'd be here to see this. He had thought that, if by some miracle he did survive Alaric's intensive blow by blow attack, he would return to find Elena curled up in bed with his brother. Damon imagined it would have been Hell to come back to that; to live in his house and hear the woman he loved make love to another. The thought made him want to laugh, and cry. Now he would wish for it, wish for her to bed Stefan for eternity if he had to, because this right here, right now…this was so much worse. _This_ was Hell.

He wanted to go to her.

His steps were slow and methodical as he approached her side. It was as if, even from afar, he was afraid that any slight disturbance might crumble her body to dust. But when he got there, she still remained. His hand began reaching even before he could think of his actions.

"Damon."

He had not been observant, and his hand stopped moving in his shock. For a moment, he had imagined it coming from her lips, but the pitch was wrong and the voice had a defeated tone to it. He looked up, and found Stefan sitting on a stool at the opposite side of the table.

He was watching his older brother cautiously, and as the anger started to build in Damon he understood why. Stefan was afraid. He was afraid that Damon would snap, afraid that he would go off the deep end. Stefan was scared that this may be the point where his brother finally fell off the cliff he had been balancing on the edge of for many months, the one that Elena had kept him from falling off. He was right to feel this way, Damon mused.

"How could you let this happen?"

In his anger he had rushed around the slab she lay, at vampire speed, and stood looming over his brother, pulsating with anger.

Stefan didn't utter a word; instead he looked at his brother hopelessly. It made Damon mindlessly angry and he lashed out in the only way he knew how. He punched Stefan, and the younger man tumbled back off the stool and fell onto the ground.

"Why didn't you protect her?"

With every word he struck again. He saw his brother's face slowly become bloodied and red, very much like his own rage. He wanted revenge and Stefan was to blame. For once it wasn't his fault; it wasn't his stupid actions that got them to this desperate place. For a brief moment he wished they were, because he knew deep down that after all this he still loved Stefan, and that his brother would hate himself more than Damon could ever hate him for what had happened that night. At this moment however, these thought were put on the backburner as his rage and grief continued to overwhelm him

"Why didn't you _save_ her?"

This last question was a frantic, cracked whisper. Stefan seemed to flinch at its hopelessness, but finally spoke once again.

"She wanted…she wanted this. She wanted me to save Matt, she wanted-"

Damon lifted Stefan from the floor and slammed him against the wall, holding him by the front of his shirt. His eyes had long ago become black, and his fangs were on full display.

"She wanted this? I can assure you brother that on the list of things that Elena wanted, this wasn't one of them!"

That was the moment that Stefan cracked, the moment he started to get angry at his brothers behaviour. He had had enough to deal with tonight as it was, without Damon reminding him of his actions.

"You think I don't know that? You think that I haven't been reliving the events over and over, thinking of different ways I could have saved them both! Don't tell me what I should and shouldn't have done Damon, when you were never there! You weren't there for _her_. You weren't even in the same town!"

His words were meant to hurt, and they did. God, did they. Damon's hands went lax for a short moment, and in that time Stefan took advantage of his muddled thoughts and pushed him roughly.

It was too hard, and that combined with the fact that Damon wasn't ready for it resulted in his momentum taking him back and making him stumble against the metal table in which Elena lay.

Her body fell in what seemed like slow motion, sliding sideways and overbalancing off the opposite edge of the table. She hit the linoleum floor with a resounding slap of skin. Both the brothers went stiff with horror.

The worst thing about it all was the fact that she made no vocal noise of offense or protest that one would expect; no noise at all. Not a sound of pain escaped through her lips when she hit the frigid ground, and there was no steady or aching rise from the floor as she picked herself up again. She just lay there in her wet clothes, her arms haphazardly laying at her sides, her hair splayed wildly about her, and a leg bent at an awkward angle. It only seemed to emphasise the fact that she wasn't there anymore, that there were only two beings in the room that would walk out that door again when this was all through.

Damon was the first pull himself back through the hazy shock and to the painful reality that now was. He rushed around the table and knelt beside her. He lifted her at the shoulders gently, corrected her limbs so that they lay more naturally, and proceeded to cradle her limp figure against his chest. The water in her hair began to slowly soak through his shirt, sticking it to his chest. It emphasised the freezing temperature which was now her body.

A tear rolled down his cheek.

"Get out of here, Stefan. Get out before I _rip_ your heart out."

In those words he spoke the truth. In that moment he didn't care who Stefan was, he just wanted a moment with Elena, just one short interval of time where he could say goodbye to her.

Hearing the truth in his brother's words, Stefan hesitated, but finally he began to walk to the doors. As he passed him, the girl he loved lying now unresponsive in the other man's arms, he brushed his hand across Damon's shoulder. It was a sign of understanding, an acknowledgement of what they had both now lost.

Damon did not have the strength or will to respond to such a defining gesture, and before he could sum up the courage to do so, Stefan had left the room without uttering another word.

They were alone now, and Damon looked down at Elena's perfect feature and finally let the few tears brimming at the edge of his eyes to roll down his face. He did nothing to hide them. There was no one to hide them from now. She was gone and he could feel it in the coldness of her skin, the easy way he could manipulate her limp form. She was dead. Elena was well and truly gone from the world.

As he sat there, he thought of the great loss that he had experienced in his life, and how none of them ever measured up to the despair he felt in this moment. He wished that he could have done something for her in her final moments. He wished that he could have made them peaceful like Rose's; happy.

Maybe he still could. Maybe he could try. If not for her, then for himself.

Damon Salvatore sat on the cold, hard floor of the hospital morgue and held Elena close to him, kissing her still-damp hair gently. He projected his thoughts into her quiet mind; a day in the park with her parents and brother. No werewolves, no vampires, no supernatural beings of any kind. It was just a normal day in a human life, like the one she had before that fateful crash brought it crumbling down around her like a city at siege. It was one she deserved.

So he made it for her, even if it was too late for her to experience its wonders. In his mind, she would be forever smiling, forever happy. Elena Gilbert would be forever dreaming of a life that should have been. It was his final gift to her.

**A/N: So, what do you think? I hope you liked it, and thank you for reading. If you can take just a moment to leave a review, I would love you forever :) **

**You can find me on Tumblr at the-delenian-diaries**

**Brynndabella.**


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